The Jyotisha readings calendar is now temporarily open. I hope to be able to
offer a few readings each month during the Oregon autumn and winter. When the available
readings are booked, the calendar will close.

Thanks as always to my many dedicated and supportive readers
for continuing to send appreciative comments and
suggestions. As always, I will keep improving and updating
(and correcting) the website study materials as time
allows.

Wishing you every happiness,
healing from sorrow, guidance by inner light, success in
all of life’s endeavors, and continuing engagement in your study of the
samayavidya,

It is an
organ (eye) of psycho-spiritual study, designed
to improve focus, clarity of
awareness, and discrimination between objects
of perception (eye).

As one of the six ancient
components (vedanga) of the vast body of Vedic wisdom, Jyotishavidya is called
the eye of the Veda.

It is important to appreciate that Jyotisha is a
vehicle of perceptual refinement (an eye).
The samayavidya
is designed to enhance the conscious life perspective (dharma) so that one
may make wiser, better informed, more compassionate choices.

Jyotisha is intended for wisdom studies. This gift is explicitly
not designed for superstitious fortune-telling. Generally, Jyotisha guidance will not
yield correct judgments when misused for worrying, fearful, or superstitious purposes.

To all you austere Buddhas selling your smiles in taverns, happy birthday.

To you countless Buddhas twinkling in the night sky, happy birthday.

And happy birthday to all of you brightly smiling, beautiful Buddhas in the gardens.

To all you Buddhas who have become endlessly changing clouds as you drift across the sky, to all you Buddhas who are quietly biding your time as boulders―a very happy birthday to you, too.

And happy birthday to all you cute little Buddhas swimming in the water. To all you lively Buddhas soaring about the sky. To all you reverential Buddhas singing hymns in churches, and to all you handsome Buddhas chanting in temples.

To all you Buddhas hoeing and plowing the fields and paddies, to all you Buddhas sweating in the humming factories, to all you Buddhas working in dust and dirt, and to all you Buddhas quietly studying in classrooms - let me wish you all a very happy birthday.

When I open my eyes, you are Buddha. When I close my eyes, you are Buddha. Every place in the universe is filled with Buddha!

The heavens and the earth are from the same source, and everything in the universe is One Buddha. Although we all have different guises and appearances, we're all manifestations of this One Buddha. Everything is equal, and everything is magnificent!

So let us transcend our torments in this world of Buddha, and enjoy happiness. How marvelous that every single place is a site for liberation from suffering and ignorance!

To all you Buddhas wearing the gentle smile of compassion and delivering the Dharma in a sound even greater than thunder, to all you Buddhas who fill every corner of the universe － every day is a wonderful day, and every day is our birthday.

I have various differences of opinion,
quibbles, dogmatic variations, complaints, orthographic issues, and frustrations with
your website.

Herewith I am sending you the necessary corrections
to your erroneous viewpoints.

Sincerely,

One Who
Knows Better Than You

A:
Namaste

Thanks very much for your compliments on
www.barbarapijan.com I am
delighted to know that you are finding the website information to be useful
in Jyotisha studies. I hope to continue to be able to add example nativities
and commentary, as time permits.

Barbarapijan.com is not a forum for
public debate or criticism. It represents my own work over decades of study
and inquiry.

In order to share your own scholarship with others,
please create your own blog or website, or create or contribute to ongoing
internet discussions on topics of Jyotishavidya.

Your
educated and sourced opinions are valuable. The international Jyotisha
community benefits greatly from the sharing of data, interpretation,
citations to classic literature, and other scholarly viewpoints supported by
concrete examples.

Please do not send your opinions to me, but
rather please share with the community of learners.

Wishing you every happiness, healing from sorrow, guidance by inner light,
and success in all of life’s endeavors,

Sincerely, Barbara Pijan
Lama, Jyotisha

Q:
Will my afflicted Jyotisha nativity ever improve? Or am I doomed
to a lifetime of disempowerment?

A:
BPL

You are able to do anything that you
believe is possible. The Jyotisha nativity simply defines the belief
paradigm that was in place at the time of fleshbirth. The pattern at birth shows
the default limits of the subconscious
expectation.

Doom is fear, and fear is the great saboteur.
Doomsayers are agents of fear. If one wishes to live a life crippled by fear
and anxiety, that wish will be honored. Those fearmongers who seek to
control others will certainly be delighted if you would like to register to
join
the group of fear-based believers.

However if one might prefer to live in a state of intelligent creativity
and spiritual freedom, perhaps the superstitious path of doom is not the
most functional choice.

Raising the buried
expectations into consciousness may allow one to inspect the beliefs,
then change the beliefs, and
thus change the outcome.

Each individual is
completely in control of every detail of the power and extent of
the unfolding tapestry of the life
experience. However whether one is able to accept the empowerment to control
one's own destiny depends entirely on the
permissions granted by the
paradigm of belief.

It is recommended to inspect the
inventory of one's beliefs and expectations
via self-inquiry and visualization, in order to consciously alter the field
of manifestation.

This exercise requires a willingness to accept personal
responsibility for one's own beliefs about limitation, as well as
one's own beliefs about permission.

Those unable to
accept responsibility for managing the content of their own mental
convictions may prefer to feel
controlled by ineffable fate. Fascinated by the victim narrative, they
remain in trance. For their experience of
misery, they may seek to blame others, including deities, economies, and bad planets.

However, fate is simply the lawful, mechanical operation of the default
belief paradigm. Defaults can be changed.

First of all, it is important to reiterate that Jyotisha is not
fortune-telling (although it can be mis-used for superstitious prophecy, and
often is.) We live on a Planet of Free Choice, and every Earth Human
regardless of their level of consciousness is required to make their own
choices.

If the consciousness is so blunted that one cannot accept
responsibility for making one’s own choices, then naturally one may seek to
attribute power to outside phantoms and resentfully blame them, or live in
cowering fear of them. But fundamentally, we are all making choices about
how to respond to the experiences that unfold before us.

All of the
patterns of experience are adaptive, meaning that the unfoldment of
experience is constantly being reworked and redirected according to the
decisions made by each individual being.

By the techniques of
Jyotishavidya it is certainly possible to read default patterns in the map
of the Jyotisha nativity, and indeed those living in superstitious mentality
will follow the default patterns like a sleepwalker, only barely grasping
the divine intelligence that is guiding their actions.

However to make
the best use of Jyotisha divinations, one must accept responsibility for
optimizing the range of available choices. The supreme optimization is to
make every decision from the basis of compassion. Often the most
compassionate decision is indeed to do nothing.

When an important action
is required, Jyotisha insight may be sought. The guidance of Jyotisha can
supplement other species of knowledge such as economic facts (or theories),
sociological and historical perspectives, common sense, and other normal
forms of terrestrial intelligence.

However ultimately the decision must
be made as consciously as possible by the individual, and in so raising
their consciousness by accepting responsibility the person offers the
highest honor to that Source from which we are all born and to which we do
return.

"And
I saw how the stars of heaven come forth, and I counted
the portals out of which they proceed, and wrote down
all their outlets, of each individual star by itself,
according to their number and their names, their courses
and their positions, and their times and their months,
as Uriel the holy angel who was with me showed me. He
showed all things to me

and wrote them down for me:
also their names he wrote for me, and their laws and
their companies."

Jyotisha is a vidya : a body of partly mystical, partly mathematical knowledge. This body of knowledge contains principles which regulate the interpretation of effects of the planetary
lights upon human perceptions and human behavior. The lights include Sun, Moon, planets and stars predominantly within Earth's solar system
* Ra * but also beyond.

Jyotisha, as it is practiced worldwide today, is an ancient prediction system rooted in the scriptures of brilliant Indo-Aryan astronomer and astrologer Vahara Mihira (505-587 CE, Avantikapuri).

Jyotisha is often called"Vedic"astrology, although the name may be a misnomer since"vaidik" priests of ancient India actually used a a particular lunar astrology in their rituals which is quite different from the solar Jyotisha that is widely used today.

Nevertheless in my pages one may read the term"Vedic" used as a blanket term for"scripturally traditional Indian"and referring to a large and extremely diverse lore of ancient = starting circa 1500 BC and medieval Indian = including south-Asian, Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, and Mediterranean = astrological literature that far extends beyond the original portfolio of the"vaidik" priesthood.

Skilled Vedic astrologers, or Jyotishi (daivajna), can evaluate health, wealth, love, marriage, children, career, art, and death by using a series of astrological techniques developed within the ancient Vedic traditions, over the course of the last 25 centuries (at least).

Jyotisha can be understood as a s on the correct application of"Counting Rules ".

Jyotisha requires careful application of universal accounting principles. Ideally Jyotisha can yield a complete and accurate itemization of every single experience which the native 's subconscious image-projecting machine might produce in this lifetime.

In principle, everything should be accounted for, with no remainders.

The system is valid. However, the issue of correct labeling due to limitations of vocabulary and a cramped sense of possibility (self-limiting beliefs) has produced at the present time in history a set of mental conditions which impose some serious handicaps upon practicing Jyotishi.

Jyotisha can be modeled as a language, with its own grammar and lexicon.

Jyotisha grammar consists of its underlying principles for the construction of rational propositions, its definitional rule-base, and its lawful step-wise procedures for correct accounting.

The grammar of Jyotisha defines the mechanical rules which drive the experience-projection machinery of the human Mind. In this sense Jyotisha is an ancient and ever-lasting"science of the mind". Correct application of these scientific rules can generate accurate predictions of future experiences for an entity which has its own Mind.

As comprehension of the vocabulary of Jyotisha increases, the community will be able to practice more and test more the underlying Jyotisha grammar.

― Geoffrey Chaucer

“Ful wys is he that kan himselve knowe.”

Jyotisha vidya practice community and its relationship to the language of Sankrit

The polite and delightfully poetic human language = Sam-skrita has been the carrier language for Jyotisha traditions for several millennia. All pranams to Sanskrit for its noble service of protecting and preserving the vidya during long dark times.

However the Jyotisha conceptual system far predates the linguistic origins of Sanskrit language. Sanskrit itself is a linguistically organic development from earlier languages. Before languages as we know them were needed due to the down-cycle of the yuga wheel, highly telepathic signal systems that were used for countless eons to communicate value and meaning from one generation to the next.

Knowledge of Sanskrit vocabulary at this time in history remains an essential tool of Jyotisha practice. However expertise in the grammar of Sanskrit is less important that expertise in the grammar of Jyotisha.

To facilitate the development of a worldwide Jyotisha community it is important IMO to begin translating Sanskrit terminology or introducing Sanskrit terms into the modern commercial languages. (E.g., as the Skt words 'yoga' and 'karma' have entered the lexicon of modern English.)

The birth of each New Age in the great cycles of history is marked by a major set of translations from the great works of previous cultures. I believe that a large-scale translation-interpretation of Jyotisha texts and commentaries from their protective sanctuary languages (Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Newar, Bodkye-Tibetan, Avestani, and others) will signal the birth of a new age of consciousness in the literate cultures worldwide.

~~ Paracelsus

"He who is born in imagination discovers the latent forces of Nature. . . .

Besides the stars that are established, there is yet another -- Imagination-- that begets a new star and a new heaven."

Every person is creating their own unfolding experience of life, in every moment of every day.

The process by which life experience is generated = projecting stored subconscious images and expectations onto today's reality.

Learn to follow the inner teacher (in-tuition) who is the guide to that massive inventory of thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, expectations, terrors, aspirations, memories, desires, knowledge, skill, and genius stored in the great warehouse Of The subconscious .

You will see the Programming.

You will see the your Path.

Absolutely no one outside oneself ever has - or ever could have - full access to your truth and your path.

Jyotisha is a vidya = a system of coordinated learning that utilizes the full range of intuitive knowledge of the human condition in cooperation with rational methods of applying principled interpretation to external sense data.

Jyotisha is not an empirical science in the narrow modern sense. It is much bigger than that.

Jyotisha is indeed a science in the classical western sense of scientia. Jyotisha comprises a database that contains both historic (time-bound) and immediate (timeless) knowledge.

Unfortunately, at the present moment, due to severe limitations on permissibility of data (itself an understandable reaction to the excesses of religion in eras just now passing away) modern science is more a system of technology, and less a full inquiry into the knowable.

Epistemologically legitimate evidence in Jyotisha can include intuitive information which is obtained from interior sources during a state of contemplation, meditation, reflection, or prayer. Clairsentience is not required in the practice of Jyotisha but it is permitted and supported.

Jyotisha requires the simultaneous operation of both rational and intuitive intelligence.

Like most of the classical vidya traditions, Jyotisha is too much handicapped by the limitations of dogmatically positivistic science. Thus Jyotishi who live in the industrialized worlds tend to compartmentalize their worldview.

The eminent modern Jyotishi Bepin Behari was also a recognized and effective government economist charged with providing systematic analysis for one of the largest economies in the world. He wrote a stack of technical books in economics (shelf-1) and another stack of catalogues and commentary in Jyotisha (shelf-2).

Having said that, it does help very much to learn Jyotisha rules via the 'case method' of data-analysis. That is why I have developed www.barbarapijan.com , to serve as one repository (among many that will develop) where students can examine sample nativities, and test this real-life data against the claims of historic Jyotisha theory.

The case-method offers modern intellectual Jyotishi a good path toward reintegration of this precious vidya into the modern multi-dimensional, multi-density worldview. By case-method, it is possible to verify how basic principles of Jyotisha, when correctly applied, can produce correct real-world predictions describing events on the physical , emotional, mental, and spiritual planes of perception.

The website certainly needs improvement, but I've heard from hundreds of students that they use and appreciate the materials. It's not bench science, but it sure is interesting!

Religion offered nothing to the point. Even work could not give me complete satisfaction.

Work is futile if we cannot utilise the experience we collect in one life in the next.

When I discovered Reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan.

I realised that there was a chance to work out my ideas.

Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock.

Genius is experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives.

Some are older souls than others, and so they know more.

The discovery of Reincarnation put my mind at ease. If you preserve a record of this conversation, write it so that it puts men' s minds at ease. I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us ."

Self-revelation is required to connect each person with missing (subconsciously concealed) aspects of ones own identity. These self-pieces are missing usually because of past-life trauma. It is often necessary to experience some pain of the old trauma as the pieces come back to light.

One of the major vehicles for self-realization in the modern world is the intense mirroring of intimate relationships. The threat of starving to death has receded for a big portion of the world's population, so now we are privileged to move into a new level of pain: anxiety, fearful worrying, and psycho-emotional suffering!

Indeed the human person is a complex entity. Gathering all of the pieces takes reflective time and study , as well as some tolerance for emotional pain.

If one can summon the courage to work through it, using the map of the Jyotisha nativity (and any other reflective tools which may provide intuitive guidance) it is possible to make great progress in reclaiming the lost parts of one's identity.

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."

Morality is a terrestrial, cultural, human construct.

The ancient Etruscan word mora = walls around a
settlement. Etruscan is a feeder language (lexifier) to Latin that added new
words to Latin. Mora entered Latin with the meaning of behavior that is
permissible within the walls of a settlement.

From Latin, the adjective moral entered English
with the meaning of customary and accepted behavior. The prefix im-
indicates opposite, not. Immoral behavior is not
allowed within the walls of the settlement.

Different cultures have
different values for good and bad
behavior. There is no global ethical standard.

However there does seem to be a worldwide human
fear of being shamed for
participating in bad behavior and a similar craving to be praised
for displaying good behavior.

Guilt is a separate mechanism of cultural training to repeat an
action in order to correct mistakes.

Fear of shame and
entrapment in cultural guilt can create an environment of
internal pollution that poisons one's ability to make clear and
objective assessments of the field of experience. One becomes allergically
reactive to the
objective conditions of social morality, harassed by social opinion, and
desperate for social approval.

It may take some considerable time in the
practice of meditation and self-inquiry to accomplish a cleansing of the
self-negating toxins inherited from generations of ancestors who did not
know their own minds and thus blamed others for causing their
polarizing catalysiss.

At the moment when the most virulent reactions have ceased and the full range of one's internal
echo-projection can be seen objectively in its awesome totality, at that moment one sees how
BIG and how amazingly creative the mind is! Wow! Every leaf on every tree, every glance from every other human and animal, every pang of love and sorrow - one's own mind created all that!

The Jyotisha chart can provide a useful one-page agenda , to guide the self-interpretive process. Life purpose and path to enlightenment is actually less complex than it may first appear, because there is so much repetition: old fears = Shani.
Old resistance comes back in new guises, almost indefinitely until conscious
intention aborts that infinite feedback loop.
Vimshottari dasha patterns can expose the repetition cycles.

Like any good story, the Jyotisha narrative has repeating psychological themes which express with intriguing variation and nuance = to keep the reader-native entranced!

Yet a competent literary analysis will show that each lifetime has a fixed structure, and that the core dramatis personae = body, siblings, parents, children, servants, spouse, advisers, boss, God, friends = all fit on one page, just like a Shakespeare play.

A favorite spiritual teacher of mine once said: each person is a hero in their own movie. Each movie has an inspiring theme song. Each person wins an Oscar for Best Actor! She would say, what is your movie theme song? What are the production values ? Is it is good script?

In the final 60 seconds of life, we all have to watch the replay of our self-movie. Will one feel proud of one's own performance at the Final Showing?

Jyotisha can help expose the structure of the script, so that one can do one's most heroic job in the role.

It is a game! Play well!

I realized my everyday struggle with life was heaven

~~ Mark Twain

"Life does not consist mainly - or even largely - of facts and happenings.

It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that are forever blowing through one's mind."

Yes of course - the script is determined by one's ultimate thoughts and beliefs, and beliefs can be consciously changed.

But here is the chuckle. Most folks, having achieved the consciousness to appreciate the literary structure of one's own script = via Jyotisha or otherwise) do realize that this script has authenticity , integrity and purpose.

It is unique and perfect.

The path is perfect. One may make small adjustments here and there. That is the entitlement of consciousness: one gains the intelligence necessary to change one's originating internal imagery in order to change the resulting external imagery.

As above, so below.

However, seeing that the path is unique and perfect, one tends to keep it just as it is, as a gift from God, and merrily wend one's way through the forest of illusion, battling the demons of fear and doubt, in gratitude for the privilege of the incarnation.

Jyotisha is helpful for its ability to predict when the demons (of subconscious fear) will emerge , and what shape they will take .

But it is
the decision allotted to each native whether to destroy one's own self-generated illusions along one's own path
or maintain the delusion. Free choice is the rule on Earth.

When one acquires all the pieces of this self-puzzle through owning and appreciating the elaborate complexity of one's own projection, one is consciously whole . At that moment of wholeness, one knows one's inherent identity with God = all that is . Simultaneously, one is able to see everyone else's identity with God. (All those people are projections too!). It is a lovely moment, called Enlightenment.

It is possible to repeat the moment at will, simply by remembering how one's projections are all connected . It is possible to advance on the path toward realization using any environment, any set of relationships, any mirrors we choose.

In his preface to Myths and Symbols of Vedic Astrology, the modern Jyotisha philosopher and economist Bepin Behari says:

"The relevance of Vedic knowledge has greatly increased with the rapid growth of modern science and technology.

Knowledge of the expanding universe, the development of international communication, and the spread of a materialistic way of life are modern developments that have stimulated insecurity and caused people to lose faith in life.

The individual human being has become indistinct, having lost his uniqueness.

Man faces a dilemma in that traditional values no longer satisfy modern emotional and intellectual needs while the human mind has developed to a point where it cannot blindly accept just any philosophy.

The Vedic concept of life - the identity between the individual and the universe , the possibility of an unlimited growth and expansion of human faculties -- couched as it is in a different symbolism or abstract philosophy, transcends the understanding of most people.

Unless such inner knowledge can convincingly demonstrated to the inquiring mind , it will not be accepted.

Yet, with an objective study of the principles of Vedic astrology, it is possible to demonstrate that an individual's personal life, in spite of innumerable frustrations and immense complications, is looked after and guided by natural forces and cosmic intelligence."

\

~~ Seneca the Younger

Longum iter est per praecepta, breve et efficax per exempla.

"The journey is long by teaching; yet via example it is brief and effective."

I follow your website very regularly. I am having periods of L 8 = 8 from Chandra) since 3 years which has caused much damage to my identity and career. I read your website regularly to gain inner strength and to forgive myself and accept self for whatever i am.

Today, i saw this http://viswanadhajyothirnilayam.com/abtastro.php

website when i was browsing. That website has replicated everything as it is from your website and it was painful to observe people being so mean. Wanted to write this to you so that you could initiate legal action on the culprits responsible for this.

Regards, B.

A: Namaste thoughtful reader,

Thanks for letting me know about the copycat website

http://viswanadhajyothirnilayam.com/abtastro.php

Amazing!

Well, it is an old saying that 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery' -- so I guess I am flattered.

of course it would be a bit more respectful if they would acknowledge that I wrote the material. (I see they have also copied entire pages from Wikipedia. Why not just
insert a link?)

Technically, everything published on barbarapijan.com is copyrighted by me.

Yet, even so, if
unattributed copies of my musings upon the samayavidya are creating a way for someone to discover Jyotisha, then I feel happy about that.

Sometimes the path toward wisdom is rather circuitous -- or even illicit, via
opportunistic actions of Professor Rahu.

Thanks again for your nice comments.

Wishing you confidence to continue in the struggle of self-destruction-and-rebirth, and best success in your Jyotisha studies,

Sincerely

Barbara Pijan Lama, Jyotisha

Q:

Subject: Buying or downloading
or permisson to copy the material

Dear Mrs Pijan Lama ,

...
I would like to use this forums pages, I feel guilty not contributing to the
info I quite often use.

Please tell me how to give a recompensation
for this wonderfull knodledge.

With respect and kindness,

A:Namaste,

Thanks for your nice note with compliments on the website
Jyotisha materials at barbarapijan.com I am delighted to know that you are
enjoying the materials and finding them useful in your studies.

If you
would like to make a donation in honor of this website's expression of the
vidya, please consider
a gift to my favorite reputable charity, the Tibetan Nuns Project
at www.tnp.org

Materials on the website are constantly changing, as mistakes are corrected,
and new insights added. This website is now 22 years old and some of its
features have not aged too well. Therefore please feel free to copy the
content * with attribution * but beware
that it is a big, old website and some of the content is outdated.

Wishing you every happiness, healing from sorrow, guidance by inner light,
and success in all of life’s endeavors,